In many regions, the natural refrigerant CO₂ has become an established alternative to conventional HFC refrigerants. GEA Refrigeration Technologies now presents an extended and optimized range of semi-hermetic GEA Bock compressors for subcritical as well as transcritical CO₂ applications.

In the international beer and beer mix market, supply and demand are in constant flux. While a fine Pils may have been the beer of choice a couple of years ago, the younger generation today mainly goes for beer mix drinks, since they tend to be significantly less bitter and contain less alcohol. An ever growing range of beverages in turn calls for state-of-the-art analysis methods that must meet the industry’s high quality standards regarding accuracy and the number of measuring parameters. The brewery C. & A. Veltins, Meschede-Grevenstein, Germany employs analytical instrument combinations from Anton Paar for this purpose.

In the first part, this article will explain the fundamental relationships and advantages of a stripping process based on evaporation that were discussed inter alia in the context of a diploma thesis. The way in which evaporation efficiency in a stripping system based on use and application of desorption kinetics compared to conventional processes will also be addressed. In the second part, the initial verified results from commercial wort boiling with downstream stripping will be presented. These relate to improved wort and beer quality, together with reduced primary energy consumption.

The main objective of the marketing departments of all companies is to increase sales and acquire market shares. Breweries are no exception to the rule. Acquiring market shares most often happens through launching new brands aiming to attract new customers who did not find existing brands appealing. It is not always easy to manage the development and launch of new beers. Indeed, the production of a new beer may involve the use of different raw materials, a change in the brewing temperature diagram, different kinds of yeast or a different fermentation diagram. Managing all of these parameters can turn into a nightmare for the brewer and cause a halt in the development of new beers.

At the beginning of 2012, GEA Brewery Systems installed the new automation system GEARBOXX™ at Kesselring brewery located in Marktsteft, Germany, in exchange for the old control system which had been working since 1975. It was at that time one of the first automatic systems of the still young generation being „fed“ by punched cards, which to date no longer responds to the requirements of a modern brewery. Immediate „retirement“ was decided, and the system was replaced by a modern automation system.

The OPTIMASS 6400 is the world’s first Coriolis mass flowmeter to feature advanced Entrained Gas Management (EGM). In the past, gas entrainments in liquid media presented a huge challenge for mass flowmeters because the relative movement between gas and fluid dampens the amplitude of the measuring tube. This dampening leads to inconsistent sensor amplitudes, which interfere with the electronics’ capability to determine the actual resonant frequency. While other mass flowmeters simply "freeze" their last stable reading to cover this "loss of measurement", the OPTIMASS 6400 with EGM is able to follow and correct for the varying amplitudes. This is achieved for entrained gas up to 100% of volume and continues to present an actual measured reading, together with an indication or configurable alarm for the user. This indication can be very helpful to improve processes by identifying transient gas entrainments.

By now it’s old news that American craft brewers have become the world’s greatest innovators in beer-making. It is truly unbelievable what they manage to concoct in their brew houses these days – from the most sublime to the most extreme beers. In the United States, there seem to be no limits to the art of brewing any longer. On the retail shelves and on taps in bars and brewpubs, the vast variety of “made-in-America” beer creations run the gamut from wheat beer with mandarin oranges to Belgian Lambic with cranberries, Bock beer aged on cacao nibs, authentic medieval Gruitbier, “Double” India Pale Ale, “American-Style” Russian Imperial Stout, and velvety-smooth, high-alcohol, aperitif-like “Barley Wines” and “Wheat Wines.” Equally various are the raw materials used. Read more about one such specialty beer, a Wheat Wine brewed with floor-malted malt at Brookly Brewery, New York City, by Garrett Oliver, Horst Dornbusch and Thomas

Maltsters and brewers can currently check malt raw material for its potential to trigger gushing, using two analytical methods according to MEBAK [1]. The quantity of carbonated wort (malt extract) foamed over after bottle shaking is measured, this is used for determining the gushing potential of the malt. But investigations have shown that the gushing volume may vary, making it difficult to arrive at a precise figure. The Research Centre Weihenstephan for Brewing and Food Quality has therefore developed new analytical approaches to quantify gushing (not only on the basis of the quantity foamed over).

Stimulated by the strong market demand, the liquid food equipment and supplementary equipment industry in China have made great progress in technology innovations and showed a strong growth that gives a positive signal to the food industry. As the Chinese market demands higher standards in food safety, food quality and energy-saving in the manufacturing process, the liquid food equipment industry is welcoming a lot of market opportunities. A good example is the forthcoming China Brew an Beverage which takes place in Beijing from 19 - 23 September 2012.

An efficient yeast management is meantime an essential basis for high-quality and simultaneously for cost-effective beer production. In this framework, provision of vital yeast in sufficient quantities at the required point in time is a great challenge for efficient yeast management. Due to dynamic, non-linear and time-varying characteristics as well as upstream and downstream process time mismatches, it is very difficult to achieve this ideal situation in day-to-day operations. This requires a lot of planning in terms of process fine tuning. This contribution provides an insight into possibilities of automated processes of brewers’ yeast propagation based on a fuzzy-based expert system as an integral component of an efficient yeast management system.

In the parts already published (see box), following on from a market review and a look at historical developments, mashing processes and special features and possibilities of aroma formation associated with kvass were presented. Taking account of all findings, an overall concept for a modern kvass brewery has been developed. This is described here, in the last article of the series.